


Zee's Flashfics - EGS Flashfic Week `20(Siders!)

by Zee_McZed



Category: El Goonish Shive
Genre: 100 words, BLM protests, Drabble, EGS Flash Fiction Week 2020, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Magical Shenanigans, Mild Lovecraftian superpowers, Shrink soda, ambiguous situation, body merging, hangovers, just awful, not-drabble, terrible ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26334241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zee_McZed/pseuds/Zee_McZed
Summary: One week in September.Three 20-sided die rolls per day.Shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Diane/Lucy (El Goonish Shive), Grace Sciuridae/Tedd Verres
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	1. Just Here for Moral Support

Day one: Susan, Nanase, "Just here for moral support".

-o-

Symmetry was her friend, but some things just weren't possible.

Her room was not set up for such things, sadly.

With one visitor it was feasible, if she moved furniture.

Susan was sure Nanase would not allow that right now.

"You're awake again?" Nanase asked. "How's your head? Still kinda...?"

"Foggy." Susan groaned. "How bad did I get?" Brief silence.

"The screaming was unexpected." Nanase admitted. Susan flinched. She did...

"I'm sorry." She pulled her blanket burrito tighter. "I should-"

"-relax. Everyone's first time getting drunk is terrible." Susan uncurled. "Let me tell you a story about me, mimes, Jagerbombs..."


	2. A New Spell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diane / Wild Card / Tedd, "A New Spell"

"Well." Tedd craned her head to the side, eyes wide. "It's not the strangest thing I've ever seen, but I wouldn't have expected it."

"Clearly we weren't expecting it either."

"So which of you has control right now?"

"It's a shared thing. Two people at the stick." The girl in front of her had kinky, full, curly dirty-blonde hair that hit mid shoulder, a svelte-yet-curvy form and was a little taller than her. Familiar, yet unfamiliar. "And for the record I'm really not happy that this is my first experience with magic. Hey, come on, I didn't know this was going to happen either, and it's not like I have any fun spells. You could have gotten the watches you were talking about-"

"As interesting as it is to watch what appears to be one person hold a conversation with herself..." Tedd rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I think we should at least try to unmerge you."

"We've been trying." Lucy-Diane mumbled. "Neither of us are sure what caused it, which is making it all a lot more confusing."

"And since you're presently in a merged state, it's really hard for me to tell what the mechanism of action is." Tedd let out a breath. She flopped back in her lab chair, drumming her fingers on the desk. "...do you think you can suck me in too?"

"What? Y-really? WHY?" The words all seemed to come out of Lucy-Diane's mouth at the same time, as if she was trying to say them all simultaneously. It was barely intelligible.

"It's about the only way I can see it working? I mean, unless you want me to get Grace down here."

"We would look really hot merged with Grace. Oh, knock it off, you, let's just try to suck Tedd in so we can get this over with. Fine. But once we know how to undo this, we're trying this again." Tedd was still struck with how weird that was.

"Can you hear each other's thoughts?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah."

"I'm surprised you aren't conversing that way." There was a moment of silence as Lucy-Diane stared at her. She cleared her throat. 

"Well, we have been..."

"So the conflicting single-mouth-two-people conversations were entirely for my benefit?" Tedd allowed herself a smirk.

"Let's just do this thing, okay?"

"Fine. Try it out." Lucy-Diane reached out, and took Tedd's hand, and-

-and-

And that was far more Crobenbergian than Tedd had anticipated, flesh WARPING and SHIFTING and swallowing her up like she'd suddenly turned into silly putty. For a second, all was silence and darkness - and then Tedd blinked. She was inside her body. Their body. She glanced down, and then in the mirror. Purple highlights, now, shorter...

"So what do we do?" She could feel Lucy's nervousness. Diane's... general acceptance of the situation. Huh. 

"Oh. I got the method of action. Basically, I think this is Lucy's spell?"

"Okay. That... makes sense." 

"You couldn't tell who was absorbing who?"

"No, it was kind of obvious I was the one doing the absorbing, but we couldn't tell if that was because my body was producing the magic, or if Diane had sort of hit me with an enchantment that would make my body do that."

"It's not the weirdest thing we've seen, let's be real here."

"And to get out..."

"Oh. Uh. That's the easy part. We just have to let you spit us out." Silence. Tedd could feel Lucy's tension rising. 

"Let me?"

"Yeah. You've gotta be the one to do it. And we can kind of... cling on in here, which would make it harder, or we can go with it." The silence was overwhelming. Tedd tried to cough and raise their arm - she was not terribly surprised to see their body unresponsive to her commands. Subsequent absorbees had less agency, it seemed. And while she could feel their emotions, she couldn't hear their thoug-

GAH!

The sudden unfurling and disgorging was rapid, if not violent - and then Diane was ejected as well. Lucy let out a sharp breath, patting herself down. 

"I'm just... me again, right?"

"I think that's a strong affirmative. And congratulations, you can merge other people with you to make a gestalt being! Which, really, is pretty crazy. The way that spell went, I'm fairly certain that the fused you would also have picked up all the magical talent of both people, plus some new abilities that would work as a kind of conceptual halfway point-"

"Tedd?" Lucy cleared her throat, glancing away.

"Yeah?"

"This is fascinating, but can you get dressed?" Silence reigned. 

"...oh. Crap, what happened to my labcoat?"

"I have no idea." Diane was covering herself with her arms as best as she could. "But I LIKED that dress."

"Unexpected side effect?" Tedd shrugged. "We have spare outfits in here."

"Thank god." Diane mumbled as Tedd led her to the other room. She craned her head back to mouth the words 'you owe me' to Lucy - she knew damn well that the spell disgorged only what she wanted to, and that their clothes were still held in... whatever extradimensional space they'd been in. But she wasn't going to embarrass Lucy in front of her girlfriend like that. 

This time, anyway. 


	3. Driving Somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellen and Grace, "Driving Somewhere".
> 
> TW: Contains mention of the BLM protests, happens in a timeline wherein said protests happened, etc.

There was an abundance of silence, so much that it was choking the car. A little noise crept in from the engine. Not much. They kept the radio off. Already knew what they'd hear, and they weren't much in the mood for music. 

"I'm not sorry." Grace finally whispered. 

"Did not expect you to be." Ellen replied coolly. 

"They deserved it. Every - every stinking one of them. How - how could they do that?" She was on the edge of tears again. Ellen sighed. 

"You're not going to get any arguments from me."

"I'm not?"

"If Mister Verres was here, then - yeah, he'd probably chew you out for that little stunt. Tedd would be too enthusiastic about his enjoyment of it. Sarah... would probably just be upset that you didn't finish any of them off." Grace snorted. 

"Really."

"No, seriously, she has a _rabid_ hatred of Nazis. Like, above and beyond the rest of us." Grace raised an eyebrow.

"...is this one of those things that I shouldn't ask about?"

"Elliot knows because he grew up with her. I know because... well. Tedd knows, but he doesn't bring it up. I think... pretty much everyone else knows, so..." Ellen let out a sharp breath. "Sarah's family is German. Like - about half German on her dad's side."

"Okay." Grace was starting to follow the thread, but it still felt tenuous.

"...suffice to say the reason that her family came over was because of the war. And the reason Sarah doesn't have a huge, extended family that came over at the same time is because the rest of her family stayed."

"I can guess the rest."

"Yeah. Just... knowing that people she's tangentially related to were a part of it all, willingly?" Ellen just nodded slowly. "Like I said-" Red and blue lights flashed in her rearview. "Carp."

"What do we do? We're made! We-"

"BREATHE. Just pull your license out and wait. Make no odd movements. Clear?" Grace nodded rapidly as Ellen pulled to the side. Neither of them dared to move as the police officer radioed in. Grace was barely breathing, despite the command from Ellen. The policeman shuffled up to the side of the car, and Ellen rolled her window down. 

"License, registration, proof of insurance?" Ellen handed all three over. 

"Problem, officer?"

"Right taillight's out. Looks like someone took a damn hammer to it." Silence. 

"Seriously?"

"Mmmhm. C'mon and take a look." Ellen grumbled audibly as she stomped around back of the car. Grace glanced over at the policeman, who - after glancing briefly at Ellen's backside as she walked by - was focusing on her provided paperwork. She could hear them talking about the taillight, mostly - she heard a few sharp THUMPs as she whacked the back of the car a few times. More mumbling. Then Ellen got back in the car, the police officer leaning in again.

"-gonna be a fix-it ticket, nothing more. Don't even count this as a warning, just a courtesy stop."

"Thanks."

"No worries. You two were at the protest?"

"We left before the fun." Ellen deadpanned. 

"Fair. Stay on this road back to Moperville, don't hit the freeway. Cook County Sheriffs have a couple roadblocks set up, and frankly, whole thing smells like an excuse to get more young kids like you in the lockup."

"...thanks."

"We're not _all_ bastards." He nodded, letting the moment hang in the air. "...just an unusually high number of us." The portly policeman nodded. "Ladies. Have a good night." He raised his right fist, elbow cocked, in Grace's general direction. "Black lives matter." The words weren't forced, but they still felt stilted and awkward. And yet, even that felt like a boon - a reminder that even in a broken system, there were a few people who were either trying to do the right thing, or else trying to look like they were. Enough of either would curb the kind of abuses she'd been protesting. 

And with that he was back in his car. They waited again for him to leave, before driving off themselves. Ellen let out a breath that Grace hadn't realized she was holding.

"SO damn lucky he didn't recognize you."

"Well, they ARE looking for a greenette..." Ellen's eyes widened. 

"Wait, what?"

"You thought I'd do all that with my own face? When everyone has cell phones? I just burned my Claire identity."

"...you're more devious than I thought."

"Yeah. Well." She coughed. "Even if they caught 'Claire', they still have to figure the 'how' of 'how the hell did you get a trained attack bear into a pack of Proud Boys and where did you go afterwards'."

"...hey, how many views does the UTube video have?" Grace pulled out her phone - the screen was cracked now, but it still worked. She let out a low whistle. "That good?"

"A hundred million already."

"Damn. Okay, for the record? Claire can NEVER be seen again, even if the only 'you' I could see in the video is Bear-Grace."

"I know, I know."

"And your righteous anger has me both worried, and so turned on that I would probably pull over and start necking with you right the frick now if not for the possibility of further cop interruptions."

"Wait until we get home?"

"...I... expected you to take that like hyperbole."

"Ellen, I turned into a BEAR and fought literal Nazis tonight. My life has become hyperbole. If you wanna smooch, we're smoochin'." Grace grinned. And like the rest of the night thus far, to hell with the aftermath, they'd figure it out. And maybe - maybe - they'd forget the depression, the pain, and the anger for five flippin' minutes. 


	4. When The Discussion Officially Gets Weird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tedd, 4th Wall Mail Slot Character, "When the Discussion Officially Gets Weird".

"Got the charts back. You want a soda?" Amanda hefted a can. Tedd shook his head. 

"Hard pass. Don't have time to get tiny today."

"Well, tonight." She opened the can and sipped. Tedd blinked, glancing up from the keyboard. 

"...frick. Grace is gonna kill me."

"She knows this is important research." Amanda shrugged; Tedd pointedly ignored the fact that her labcoat and top beneath were getting looser about the shoulders. 

"Yeah, but we have an arrangement about me trying to get a good work-life balance going. And I'm pretty okay with keeping up with that, but..."

"Labwork does that, yeah. It helps to have a sympathetic partner." 

"Yeah. I guess that Lisa's really supportive of your time here?" Amanda looked frozen on the spot. She blinked slowly, her brow creasing.

"Uh... Lisa's my roommate, not my girlfriend. I mean, yeah, she's gay, but - I was talking about you and Sarah. She always seems gung-ho in here." Tedd scooted back from the desk. 

"Whoa - whoa, y- you can't think - I mean Sarah's awesome but I'm - you thought I was dating Sarah _and_ -"

"Well yeah. What would be stopping you? They both have the hots for you, and each other, and I swear you three use science as a form of flirting, and - Tedd?" A can of Shrink Soda was gone, and Tedd had vanished from his desk. 

-o-

"Look, it's a long story - can you just pick me up from behind the lab? I'm currently in a pile of my clothes and operating the cell phone is awkward at best. And don't drink the sodas in the lab. Bring your own." 


	5. Bumping into each other at a surprising place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wildcard, Sarah and Catalina - "Bumping into each other at a surprising place.".

Hooting and hollering and all but catcalling was all around them. It was still early in the evening - the warm up act, so to speak - and people were still filling the venue, as the greasy, oiled up-

"Susan?" Susan froze up. She turned slowly - all too slowly - and saw Sarah there. 

"Ah." She swallowed hard. "...hi."

"Hey." Sarah was blushing harder than Susan had seen her blush in... months? Years, possibly? "I didn't - I mean, of all people-"

"It IS a heritage art form." The room was anything but quiet, but there was still an uncomfortable level of silence between the two girls. 

"I mean. I guess it is. Performance art, and all that."

"Some of the performers do display a wonderful amount of physical prowess, and the balance between choreography and improvisational skill is a real tightrope to walk."

"Huh. I never heard it put that way. But I have to agree!" Sarah nodded rapidly. "Totally a cultural experience, in a weird way."

"Naturally-"

"What the jackcarp are you guys doing here?" Both Sarah and Susan jumped visibly as Catalina slid into the seat next to them. They glanced at each other furtively. 

"...enjoying a cutural experience."

"Clearly."

"...you... do know what we're here to watch, right?" There was a moment of silence between the three.

"A... classic American heritage art form."

"So the two of you AREN'T going to be screaming your lungs out and ogling the 'artistes' in the next couple minutes?" Her eyebrows bobbed.

-o-

_"And - oh mah GAWD! PILEDRIVER! PILEDRIVER! That's a banned move! Someone stop the match!"_

"THIS-IS-AWE-SOME!" Sarah and Susan clapped along with the rest of the crowd, as Catalina stood on her chair, hoisting a sign that read 'ASUKA! STEP ON ME!' Okay. So maybe it was TECHNICALLY an art form - but they didn't need the excuse, did they? 

Sometimes you just needed to watch a superhero play-slash-soap opera wherein people smacked each other with steel chairs. 


	6. Cooking Episode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhoda, Lucy, "Cooking Episode"

It felt like they'd turned a corner. 

Lucy had admitted her jealousy and apologized. Rhoda had admitted her annoyance (and fear that Lucy was straight-up homophobic) and had accepted her apologies. It felt like they were becoming better friends - or just 'friends', given the general quiet toxicity of their relationship beforehand. 

Still, she didn't expect Rhoda to invite her over without Diane. Not yet. 

The apartment - right outside the college grounds, she could feasibly walk to class - was a third story walk-up. It took Lucy a minute to realize which door was hers, since the numbers were faded. And yet when she knocked she could hear Rhoda's exclamation of 'Door's open!' from the other side. Lucy let herself in - to a sudden rush of scents. Warm and peppery and savory and - WOW. Her mouth watered, and her heartbeat kipped up a few notches. In no time she was in the kitchen, staring.

"...I don't know what that smell is, but it's phenomenal. What are you doing in here?" 

"Oh! Catalina bought a bunch of chicken this week, so - I was thinking butter chicken? It's pretty easy, and I've already got a stack of naan made up."

"I'm pretty sure I'm not just smelling butter, and what's nan?"

"Naan. Stretch out the 'a', there's two in there." Rhoda unplugged a hot-air popcorn popper and pulled out something in a wire basket from the top - the source of the wonderful smell. "It's a kind of curry that uses a lot of butter in the sauce."

"Oh." Lucy's brain turned over. "I mean - sure?"

"Never had Indian before?"

"I think my brain might have rejected the idea for a while. Don't know why." Because Diane had a crush on Nanase and Nanase had a thing for that weird little fast food curry place, the Husky Elephant, and - dammit why had she let jealousy screw up things for so long?

"Neither do I. This stuff is amazing. Here, smell that."

"I could smell that coming in the door. What is it?"

"Cardamom pods, cinnamon, clove, and some fenugreek seeds. You have to toast or flash-fry them before you add anything else."

"So the popcorn popper..."

"Is the best way to toast them!" She beamed. "That way they don't burn. C'mon, the rest of the recipe is super easy!" 

Lucy wasn't sure if she'd qualify anything they did as "super" easy. If anything, each step seemed to highlight her inadequacies in the kitchen. Chopping the chicken and garlic was simple, but it showed off her sloppy knifework. Grating the ginger was simple, but she nicked a finger when it got too close to the grater. Throwing everything in a pan and adding onion and yoghurt and butter was simple, but she understirred at first, and Rhoda had to pipe up to get her to put some more oomph into it until the burner cooled a little. She would have been comfortable on rice making duty, but that was taken care of by an appliance - she didn't even know Rhoda owned a rice cooker. 

And yet, when it was done... it didn't seem to matter much.

"I have died and gone to garlickey-heaven." Lucy cooed, shoveling in another mouthful of the stuff with an ample chunk of naan. Rhoda tucked into hers with gusto as well, sitting on the kitchen counter. 

"Yeah, I did go a little garlic-heavy. But I think it's still good."

"It's amazing! How are you not going for a culinary degree?"

"Well, if regular magic doesn't cut it, I guess I could go for kitchen magic." 

"...so you are going for 'Applied Thaumaturgy', then?" Lucy's pace slowed. 

"It's not an official degree yet. I mean, I figure I'll just go gen-ed for my first two years, get general prerequisites out of the way..." 

"Yeah, same." Lucy still had no idea what she wanted to major in. Too many options. 

"...but as quick as things are developing... yeah. Yeah, I'll probably be looking into being one of the first batch with a degree in magic." She dabbed her mouth with a napkin. "Did you know we even have a magic lab set up? Like - right there in the open."

"Yeah, Nanase's cousin is helping run it."

"Tedd?"

"Her name is Tedd?"

"Uh. His name, I think?"

"Does Nanase have multiple cousins?" Lucy frowned. "She definitely had a rack when I saw her last. I mean she was at least as stacked as you, and she was definitely wearing a skirt." Rhoda's cheeks tinted a little, looking upward. 

"Nope. I know Tedd's kinda feminine looking, but... oh. Oh, Grace said that he's genderfluid, and he runs a magic lab, so... maybe he was a she then?" 

"Gender swapping magic? Is that a thing?"

"I mean I've managed all kinds of transformation, so probably." 

"That's..." Lucy mulled it over a second. "Really kinda cool. There's probably some trans kids somewhere that'll grow up without having to worry about HRT."

"To say nothing of everyone that's transitioned who won't have to worry about daily hormone doses if this gets widespread."

"...holy shit. Holy - we're actually about to make the gender equals sex argument completely irrelevant. Like - as a society. The second this magic becomes open knowledge-"

"I know, right? Sex will become something that people can swap like pants, and they'll be able to realize the truth of things firsthand." 

"Crap." Lucy leaned back. She stared off into space a second, and then slowly shook her head. "...you never realize just how much the world is changing..." Until, evidently, you sat down for a good home-cooked meal. "Hey, uh - so what kinds of transformation have you managed?" 

"You really want to see?" Rhoda cocked one eyebrow.

"Sure." And that was when Lucy found herself shrinking...


	7. Meeting at the mall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wildcard, Sarah, Noah - "At the mall".

It was unreasonably warm in the mall food court. While it wasn't entirely unusual for it to be warmer during the early fall, before the summer heat really faded, a full 85 degrees was a bit unusual.

Then again, the air conditioning - still very much on - was struggling against the impossible odds of cooling a building that had a massive two story tall hole where the Belk had once been.

Really, the likelihood of the mall being open was not great, but after everything, the locals were trying to get to a vague semblance of normal as soon as possible, and they'd taken care of the possibly hazardous bits that could fall from the ceiling and fixed the electric, so - good enough, right?

Right. Sure.

Sarah plopped down at the table, with three styrofoam containers full of rice and bourbon chicken. "They wouldn't let me pay."

"I guess that's the benefits of being a superhero, huh? Aside from the cool natural high that comes from the satisfaction of saving lives and stuff." Grace - or rather  _ The Incredible Shade Tail - _ beamed at her.

"I'm barely a hero. All I could do was-"

"Repeatedly save civilians and give us impossibly good recon intel." Noah grumbled beneath his hood. 

"Yeah! The speedy thing is awesome. Don't knock it." Grace opened her container and started to inhale the cheap Chinese food.

"It's not really speedy.I just - I slow down time around me so it seems like-"

"Speedy." Noah and Grace interrupted at the same time. Sarah sighed.

"Fine. If you say so."

"Don't quibble over the details! Besides if everyone knows the exact way your powers work it means your arch nemesis can use it against you."

"I don't even have a nemesis! Let alone an arch nemesis!"

"We are just getting started." Noah mused.

"Uh huh. How are you wearing that cloak without sweating through it?" Noah paused before answering, what little of his face that was visible utterly blank.

"I am very mysterious."   
  
“Well you might want to consider being a little less mysterious, or the press is going to assume that ‘Very Mysterious’ is your hero name.” He flinched.   
  
“This is fair. I will come up with a moniker soon.” He tented his fingers, putting his serious face on. Or serious silhouette, anyway. “Do we have any good news to share?”

“Cell phone service is going to be back up Tuesday.” Grace set her styrofoam box down, now empty. Sarah rubbed her temples.    
  
“Thank goodness.” She took a deep breath. “No word about…?”   
  
“Oh! Carp, you didn’t hear.” She squeezed Sarah’s hand. “He’s awake, and he’s going to be fine. When a seer burns out, they burn out  _ hard.  _ He’s convinced he’ll be back to normal in a few weeks if he uses the glove.” She’d avoided using his name, but the message was there.  _ Tedd was going to be okay.  _ Sarah took a deep, deep breath and steadied herself.    
  
“Okay. O-okay. Good. Good.” She was smiling, but she still felt shaken. She’d been bracing for the worst without realizing it. “So that’s… our seer back up and going. Nanase and Ellen are burned out but otherwise fine. Cheer’s… on the mend…” The discovery of Cheerleadra’s  _ healing factor  _ meant that Elliot was doing a year-plus’ healing over the course of  _ maybe  _ three weeks. Lucky bum. “...Justin got out without any problems, and… the rest of the support team is banged-up at the worst.” Susan was doing  _ better  _ than the last time she had to fight like that, perhaps just because it wasn’t aberrations again. Diane was no combatant, but she’d still helped - and only her car was really damaged. Ashley had lost the tip of her pinky finger in the fighting - of all things - but was otherwise unharmed, and kept telling everyone that  _ it was the most useless joint on her body, she wasn’t going to miss it.  _   
  
Heh.    
  
“We really got lucky.” Grace nodded.    
  
“You give yourselves too little credit.” Noah leaned in closer. “You trained to fight, and you applied your training well. And  _ you- _ ” He pointed at Sarah. “-are  _ terrifying  _ when you really get determined.”   
  
“I didn’t hurt anything! I just-”   
  
“-got to a safe spot and used your spell to give us  _ exact  _ directions to tear the ship apart,  _ quickly  _ enough that we could put it to use before the next volley. Leaving your body unattended for more than a few seconds in that situation took immense bravery. And thus,  _ terrifying. _ ” He sat upright again. “After you’ve had some training, I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of a fight with you.”   
  
“Hey - c’mon. I’m not going to be training. I mean, we - we had an unusual situation here, but-”   
  
“Excuse me? Miss Flashstep?” Sarah almost didn’t react to the name. She looked down at a tiny little girl, who was holding out a stuffed rabbit.    
  
“Uh…” Sarah glanced around.    
  
“Flashstep’s kinda busy talking hero stuff, but we can stop a second. What’s going on?” Grace scooted out of her chair and squatted next to her.    
  
“You saved mom yesterday.” She thrust the bunny upwards, a worn out gray-blue thing. “An’ - an’ a hero’s gotta have a sidekick so - so - so they have someone to watch their back right? So Wallace wants the job!” Sarah hid her smile behind a hand, while Noah tilted his head to the side. What could she say to that?    
  
“What qualifications does Ser Wallace have?” Noah spoke before she could.    
  
“Six years of fightin’ monsters under the bed, and in the closet.”   
  
“Full time?”   
  
“Every night.” She nodded.    
  
“It sounds like Wallace already has a hero gig.” Sarah scruffed the rabbit’s head. “What’s your name?”   
  
“Emmie.”   
  
“Emmie, you need to keep Wallace in top shape. Fighting monsters is a tough gig, and if we really need him one day, he’ll need to be ready, okay?” She puffed out her chest and nodded rapidly, squeezing the rabbit close again. “Thanks. And tell your mom I said hi.” She nodded again and bolted off, running around the corner to where her mother was - just barely concealed, watching from a distance. Sarah sighed. 

“...so, Flashstep.” Grace chimed.    
  
“I have a hero name.”   
  
“Yooooou have a hero name.”   
  
“I’m a superhero.  _ Frick. _ ” She wobbled, sinking down, head to the table. "Carol's going to be all over me _forever_ until I give her an interview."   
  
“You’re a superhero.” Noah agreed.    
  
“...so about that training…” Best to be fit and ready before the  _ next  _ invasion of heretofore-unseen aliens, right?    
  
-o-   
  
“Sorry, Wallace. I know you had your heart set on being a sidekick…”   
  
“ _ A squire, young Emmie! I wanted to be her  _ squire!  _ Truly she is a knight questing for the grail in all but name, and I wish to aid her- _ ”   
  
“Waaaaallaaaaace.”   
  
“ _ Sass not! I shall prove myself to Dame Flashstep eventually! And then, glory! Fame! Cute bunny chicks!" _ Emmie's mother rubbed her forehead. She really was grateful to the heroine, but - well, she'd hoped that she would at least entertain the idea. Having a wannabe-monster-hunter magic stuffed bunny rabbit around was going to drive her nuts eventually. 


End file.
